La Folie en Tête

From November 14 – 22, France and Switzerland were my entire being. During my travels there, a great number of language teachers I’ve known for several years met face to face for the first time at TESOL France Colloquium. We had lurked and commented on each other’s blogs, interacted through Twitter chats and retweets, attended each other’s online workshops (e.g. Virtual Roundtable) and most recently, commented on each other’s statuses in various Facebook groups (e.g. 4C, TESOL France, Nightshift, IATEFL, #EAPchat).

Sue & Brad

Our first face to face meeting was at a birthday party for Leo Selivan (@leoselivan) at a local pub near our hotel in Place d’Italie (Paris): La Folie en Tete. Packed, the bar gave Paris nightlife a local flair, reminiscent of small joints in Toronto, where the camaraderie of conversation outweighs its deafening volume. A short step outside refreshes and gives a chance for a smaller group of people to bond. It was here that I finally realised the meeting of Brad Patterson (@brad5patterson), Fiona Mauchline (@fionamau), Willy Cardoso (@willycard), Sue Lyon Jones (@esolcourses), Eduardo Santos (@eltbakery), Bethany Cagnol (@bethcagnol) and of course, Leo. When I arrived ‘fashionably late’, most of the PLN was already there and mingling. The first I saw was Brad’s warm and welcoming eyes. So great to finally touch, move beyond the online, see the real guy. Then one by one, we all found our way into conversation, sometimes in, sometimes outside La Folie. Though I knew it was the first tangible time we’d hung out, there was no concern of awkward silence. It was like we’d spent our daily lives together: in fact, we had.

I knew this feeling before; making the leap from online to offline is not a new experience for me.

Willy & I

At the early stages of the internet–mid 90s–where we all used 14,4K dialup modems; video and even photos strained the connections; lag was often a barrier to synchronous chatting; and virtually not social networking site existed, my first online interaction occured. During university, I used on a text-based chat community, a little like IRC, called ‘Forest’. I’d log on with a series of numbers and DOS-like command prompts. We’d exist in a text-based room, with a description loading as soon as you logged in. All users would participate in a central stream of conversation, which moved quickly up the screen: a challenge to decipher if not used to it (not so dissimilar to today’s Twitter, actually). DMs would come in bold within this stream, though only you and they could see it. There were clans you’d join with a group of friends around you, and with more hours logged, you’d gain privileges that allowed for different interactions. It was here I met several friends from around the world, whom I would eventually talk to on the phone (the first step in progressing offline) and eventually meet in person (though only with those local enough–starving student and all). We moved online to offline in a fairly seamless transition.

Brad & I

My second, back in the heyday of online forums–mid 00s–was as a part of an online Madonna fan community. I’d log on to the forum on a daily basis, starting and participating in threads discussing her music, games about her songs, even engaging in off-topic discussions. Drama often ensued. Over the four or five years we met there, a group of ~20 grew into a community with its ups and downs, the same characters interacting with one another fueled by a shared interest. I even created and moderated one of these forums for a while. And one day, many of us met at a couple of her concerts, in Toronto and in Chicago. Our report was like we’d known each other offline too. Now I no longer go to these forums, but many have reconvened in a Facebook group, like old times, and truly are good friends.

And so I like to share here that there is enormous value in the powerful connections that can be made from fostering a network of people you share interests with online. Sure, we can all look around our lives and think that the friends and colleagues we have in our daily lives are enough, but why limit oneself when there is a world of like-minded people around the world, that we can get to know, exchange cultural experiences with, share professional passion with and learn from?

So I leave you with just a quick slice of my first meeting with some PLN and ask what your experiences like this have been like.

Some of the PLN reminiscing about last year’s TESOL France Colloquium, which inspired me to make the trip to experience it first hand this year!

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10 Responses to La Folie en Tête

Great post Ty and lovely to meet you at TESOL Fr. The move from offline to online isn’t a new experience for me either, but I must say TESOL France was just ‘my size of shoes’. It wasn’t a huge conference like the IATEFL, which hopefully I’ll go for the 1st time this year, it was just the perfect size. It allowed us to have quality time together and go beyond shallow small talks. As you said, ‘there was no concern of awkward silence’ cause in the end, nothing was awkward, it was just a couple of friends seeing each other after a long time.

I loved almost every minute. I loved the organisation and most of the timing (another post on this coming soon), the socialising and the general size. I do remark, however, that through no fault of its own, there wasn’t really the most opportunity to have quality time together with friends. Sure, we had some dinners and drinks, but it only provided chats for me and a few peeps. I would love to have spent a whole day with any number of people, you included. :)

Hi Tyson
It was great meeting you f-2-f!!
I know the kind of experience you describe above, and nowadays an important factor for me to decide whether to go to a conference or not is whether there will be people I connect with online, more than for example if there speakers are famous, or anything.

You were definitely one I very much looked forward to hanging out with f2f. Hope to have more opportunity for that in future, Willy. :D Of course I agree with you regarding conferences, particularly abroad. I did not attend TESOL France because of the sessions or famous people per se, but because I envied the time with PLN that everyone had last year and wanted that for myself too. And I was not disappointed.

I’m already taking a look at some reblogging possibilities. I love the idea.

[…] If I could split myself into two, I would. – My experience of the conference was an emotional one, sparked by the people I met and the dialogues we had. I felt as though I belonged. (Beale) Adam’s post on his experiences with our PLN at IATEFL reconfirmed my resolve to make it to TESOL France Colloquium, despite all costs being mine. Like him and many others, I would nearly mimic this experience to a tee. […]

You have made me feel soooo regretful I wasn’t able to make TESOL France this year!!! And it’s so great to see those same feelings we all have reinforced. Online is great – it gets you going, it paves the way, you do get to know people but those PLN hugs are really precious.

Am so happy for you that you had this experience and hope to meet you f-2-f too some time soon